The invention has been developed primarily for use in relation to the flavouring of pre-packaged or bottled beverages such as milk for consumption at the point of sale, and will be described with reference to this application. It will be appreciated, however, that the invention is not limited to this particular use and may be also used to provide flavouring to other beverages, or for the oral administration of dissolvable nutritional, pharmaceutical, health and energy enhancing agents.
A problem with prepackaged beverages, and in particular with milk products sold in TETRA-PACK cartons, is that of hygiene. When the carton is opened, the lip is necessarily contacted by the hands of the user, which may not have been recently cleaned. Moreover, the carton will normally have been handled many times previously during packing, transportation and stacking on shelves. If the consumer then drinks directly from the lip, a hygiene problem is immediately apparent.
In an attempt to address this problem, straws are often used. However, this is not always successful. Retailers periodically run out of stock and are unable to supply the straws. In any case, the straws themselves are often handled or stored in unhygienic conditions. A further problem is that because the retailer is not normally able to charge an additional price for straws, their supply effectively reduces the profit margin. Consequently, there is no incentive for the retailer to supply a straw with each carton, and the consumer is often not mindful or sufficiently motivated to ask.
In order to address the particular hygiene problem associated with the handling of straws, the technique of providing individually pre-wrapped straws is known. However, these are more expensive and consequentially, there is even less incentive for retailers to stock and diligently provide them to customers. Accordingly, they have not found widespread acceptance. Many of the factors outlined above apply not only to milk, but to many other beverages such as mineral waters, cordials, carbonated beverages, juices, colas and the like.
A further problem relates to stock and inventory control. Most ranges of milk, carbonated mineral waters, cordials, and other beverages are produced in a variety of different flavours. Consequently, a considerable amount of valuable refrigeration space is required in retail outlets in order to provide adequate stocks of the full range of flavours for each beverage product line.
In order to address many of these problems, it has been proposed to entrap a suitable flavouring agent within a drinking straw so that as the beverage is consumed, flavouring is progressively added. In the past, several combinations of flavouring agent and entrapment means have been tried. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,713 discloses a number of alternatives. One such alternative is a flavour straw incorporating a flavour imparting liner within the straw. However, this configuration has been found difficult in practice to manufacture. It has also been found not to provide sufficient mixing between the plain beverage and the flavouring agent, and consequently does not adequately flavour the drink.
Another proposed alternative is to fill the body of a straw with granular material held between a pair of sponge filters. However, in this case, the granular material restricts fluid flow and the sponge filters are prone to clogging. Such difficulties are enhanced with decreasing size of the granules because the void space between the granules is reduces and the filter necessarily must be finer.
These alternatives highlight two generally conflicting objectives which must be overcome or reconciled. On the one hand adequate mixing of flavouring into the beverage is required in a consistent and controlled manner. And on the other hand, the suction required to draw the beverage through the straw must not be excessive.
Other variations such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,718,681 display a medication delivery straw in which the particles containing the active ingredient are placed into the straw and carried into the mouth of the user as the carrier liquid is consumed. A filter at the bottom prevents the particles from passing out of the straw and into the liquid under gravity whilst allowing fluid to be sucked into the straw. However, the filter is unidirectional and is not required to retain the particles within the straw. Consequently, there is no control over the concentration or rate of delivery of the medicament.
All of these and other similar alternatives display inherent shortcomings, which have hitherto prevented their widespread adoption or commercial success.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or substantially ameliorate one or more of these disadvantages of the prior art, or at least to provide a useful alternative.